Introduction
Document Type
Book chapter
Source Publication
The Cinema of Small Nations
Publication Date
11-21-2007
First Page
1
Last Page
20
Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Abstract
In a recent article entitled ‘An Atlas of World Cinema’, Dudley Andrew concludes his discussion in the following way: Let me not be coy. We still parse the world by nations. Film festivals identify entries by country, college courses are labelled ‘Japanese Cinema’, ‘French Film’, and textbooks are coming off the presses with titles such as Screening Ireland, Screening China, Italian National Cinema, and so on. But a wider conception of national image culture is around the corner, prophesied by phrases like ‘rooted cosmopolitanism’ and ‘critical regionalism’. (Andrew 2006: 26) Andrew's concluding remarks reference the recent emergence in film studies of a new critical vocabulary - ‘world cinema’, ‘transnational cinema’, ‘regional cinema’ - while his discussion of world cinema more generally responds to, and thus reflects, the need for fully developed conceptual models that will lend analytic precision to the terms in question. Particularly relevant in the present context is the way in which Andrew's reference to nations and to their inevitable persistence in film culture also acknowledges, at least implicitly, that innovative ways of understanding national elements must be part of the critical shift that is currently occurring in film studies.
Publisher Statement
Copyright © in this edition Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
Additional Information
ISBN of the source publication: 9780748630929
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Hjort, M., & Petrie, D. (2011). Introduction. In M. Hjort, & D. Petrie (Eds.), The Cinema of Small Nations(pp.1-20). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.